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Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:46 pm
by jayshields
I've had Vista pretty much since it came out. It's no worse than XP. Disabled UAC and the new search indexing thing straight away, which aren't even worth moaning about, they're easily disabled.

I have/had one annoyance with Vista, no drivers for my Belkin wireless card. That's it.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:48 pm
by Bill H
irritating popup "are you sure you want to allow this?"
Well, that's the "UAC" feature, which can be turned off.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 4:02 pm
by matthijs
So how often do you see those UAC popups then with Vista? In theory it should only be used when you are about to install a program isn't it? That's how it works on Mac. Only when you want to install a program OS X asks for the admin password. So that happens only rarely, I'm fine with a system like that. It's an extra layer of security.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 11:00 pm
by JAB Creations
matthijs, try opening the folder in the start menu and manually organize your start menu to look like this...
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/6302 ... enugx9.png

...and in Windows 7 you can't set your start menu to classic any more. Every time you cut, paste, or delete an item in the start menu the UAC prompt asks you if you're sure you want to do that. It's HORRIBLE. If you don't trust me download a copy of Windows 7 beta. I dropped the resolution down from 1920x1200 for those of you who are still at 1024x768.

Those of you who aren't power users aren't going to care obviously. However those of us who need our systems to not become barriers to productivity will notice flaws when what we are doing is interrupted by a smoothly working flow of GUI interaction.

Oh and if anyone wants the Vista theme for XP you can find it here...
http://customize.org/xpthemes/58194

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 11:20 pm
by John Cartwright
matthijs wrote:So how often do you see those UAC popups then with Vista? In theory it should only be used when you are about to install a program isn't it? That's how it works on Mac. Only when you want to install a program OS X asks for the admin password. So that happens only rarely, I'm fine with a system like that. It's an extra layer of security.
A lot more frequently than you think. I disabled it after the 2nd day I got it quite some time ago so it's dificult to remember a good example; but it certainly was not limited to program installations/removal at all.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:48 am
by josh
Accessing windows utilitiles like the control panel triggered it. While they were still in alpha they got cut down by a bunch of rumors that it triggered on creating a folder, I disabled UAC but I think they definitely fixed the main issues before they released it. What good is protecting only against program install? If an exe executed it could just modify the registry directly, I believe the actual registry accesses themselves were tied in the UAC. I decided it was easier to risk a hack tho.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:22 am
by matthijs
Obviously a lot of people here are power users for which the UAC popups happen more often and are more annoying. What I'm interested most in is what it does with your average Joe who uses his computer. What I remember from XP is that the windows popups in general are very very annoying. Plug in a simple USB stick and wait: popup 1 "found new hardware". popup 2 "installing new hardware", popup 3 "have installed hardware X". Or doing anything at all with you system and you get cryptic messages "process X has done Y. Z has reported 00x001x08gert" Only button "Ok".

If a system runs like that, it seems stupid to introduce a UAC system for "safety reasons" with even more cryptic popups asking people to click "Ok".

@jshpro2: why is it good to protect against program install? Seems obvious to me. If a program is being installed on my machine I want to be sure it only happens with explicit permission from the administrator (me). I realize there are a lot more differences between OS X en windows so the situation is obviously different. After writing my previous post I realized that it's not only for program install that you have to type in your password. Starting and stopping the webserver (if you have one running that is) is another example. And there are probably other situations, but I don't come across them (even as a power user)

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 2:10 am
by papa
matthijs wrote:Not used Vista myself, but I've heard the stories from people I know, having to buy new printers because their current ones didn't work anymore, etc

If people consider XP an upgrade from Vista: wow, I cannot imagine the horrible experience Vista must be, seeing what mess XP already is. People actually pay for that? Would be very interesting to learn more about how the marketing people at Microsoft do that, I want to be able to do that as well.
Happened to me. I bought a laptop for my dad and it came with Vista. Tried two of our printers but none were compatible so we had to buy a new one.

Haven't worked with Vista though, only played some Solitaire. But have colleagues that switched back to XP after trying Vista. But I remember when XP came out, it took a year or two and a bunch of updates before it was good enough to use.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 3:08 am
by JAB Creations
When XP first came out I switched back to 98SE because I couldn't fix all the stuff in XP that I could later on. However 98SE just wasn't stable and I had to reboot just to play a different game.

With XP all the stuff from 98 was there, you just had to figure out how to tweak XP. However it's different with Vista, most of the GUI has been slaughtered and what replacements have been implemented are horridly thought out...or actually I wouldn't say horridly thought out so much as not thought out. They removed the useful parts of Windows and added a ton of useless junk. It takes a dozen times longer to find something in Vista/7 then to actually do it in XP. If you're a common user in XP though you probably haven't cleaned it up, organized it, and determined best usage practices to keep it that way however.

It is an issue of power user over common user. Who do common users rely on? Pft not MS support! If you want an effective fix you get the guru you know to help you out. They know how to work around the OS's weeds and jungle. Now what happens when that jungle of crap becomes such a burden that using the Windows 7 start menu becomes as complex as making addEventListener work in Internet Explorer?

I'd like to hear our average Joe's here try out Windows 7 Beta and find the volume controls in the start menu. Get back to us and let us know if it's easy as cake or if it's aggravating.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:49 pm
by josh
JAB Creations wrote: However it's different with Vista, most of the GUI has been slaughtered
Uh all they did was add a new theme ( aero ) and set it as default. You may not like the theme but I don't believe much else was changed GUI wise with the OS.
JAB Creations wrote: It takes a dozen times longer to find something in Vista/7 then to actually do it in XP.
It does? There's still the desktop and quick launch, then there's commonly used programs on the start menu, something I found SPEEDS me up. Then there's a search box right on the start menu, very helpful when you have 100+ programs installed and you don't remember the name / manufacturer name.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:05 pm
by Bill H
It takes a dozen times longer to find something in Vista/7 then to actually do it in XP.
And if you don't like the Vista menu, you can select "Classic Menu."

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:21 pm
by Stryks
I'd have to agree that changing certain fundamental functionality is a bad move by Microsoft. I've always been a holdout though. I was still in DOS when Windows 98 was first released. I held on to 98SE until support ended and then went up/down to XP after a 2 hour attempt at Windows ME.

All in all the move from 98 to XP was pretty smooth, but when I first dropped into Vista, I stumbled around like a newbie. I got better quickly enough.

I thought I'd probably stay with XP until support ends, but to be honest, XP seems to be dying on my machine. I'd call it an isolated case, but just recently I've been noticing it on work machines as well. Once all the patches are applied, XP seems to just lose all of it's grunt. And that is one thing that annoys me ... when doing simple things gives me an hourglass and keeps me hanging. If I want to switch from code view to my browser, it should just snap across ... it shouldn't have to 'think' about it.

Of course, the cynical part of me thinks that this is exactly the purpose of the ever expanding XP, to get users to upgrade their machines and "hey, why not get a copy of Vista while you're here?"

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:55 am
by JAB Creations
jshpro2 wrote:Uh all they did was add a new theme ( aero ) and set it as default. You may not like the theme but I don't believe much else was changed GUI wise with the OS.
Uh hello! Did you have a look at the screenshot I posted by chance? There's a massive difference between GUI's and skin's.

I use the Aero skin for XP because that is all Vista should have been plus security enhancements...
http://customize.org/xpthemes/58194
jshpro2 wrote:It does? There's still the desktop and quick launch, then there's commonly used programs on the start menu, something I found SPEEDS me up. Then there's a search box right on the start menu, very helpful when you have 100+ programs installed and you don't remember the name / manufacturer name.
In Windows 7 quick launch has been slaughtered and there is no way to tell what programs in the taskbar replacement are open or simply shortcuts!

You're not supposed to SEARCH the start menu! Holy H&*%! I don't think you've spent any time Ubuntu after having read that! Did you also not look at my start menu in the screenshot I took a couple extra minutes to post?
Bill H wrote:And if you don't like the Vista menu, you can select "Classic Menu."
GONE! They got rid of it in Windows 7! I heard the same arguement, no one uses it so they got rid of it! Well gee if IE is the default and it seems to work then we should get rid of Firefox! :evil:

Stryks, how many processes is XP running on your machine before you open any thing? I think that'll reveal where you stand in regards to your point of perception.

The only real arguement people have is that XP is a (for a closed source OS) open platform with few restrictions. Any program can put any number of items in the start menu but will you the owner of your computer take action to clean it up? Programs that don't need to be running will not even ask you before adding themselves to the startup list, have you bothered to deny them from slowing your system down for absolutely no reason? Have you spent even ten minutes trying to clean and organize your system? Does your system's level of organization reflect on your real world organization? Will you put oil in your car every few thousand miles or run it in to the ground?

We're not a general every day Joe sort of forum. If anything I think the safest universal cloak for all of us is that we're producers. Be it clientside, serverside, or not even entirely web based. But we produce things whatever they may be and so as a producer it's even more critical to retain control over the environment that we're using as a basis for that production. I'm running dual RAID-1's to protect my data and prevent having to reinstall XP if a drive dies (while I could do RAID 0 my system is plenty fast). I'm not sure just how serious people are taking the OS as a platform that enables them to produce what they produce...or even how serious they are about producing what they are? Who here considers themselves a power user? In control of their system and they work at a high or maximum amount of efficiency? Searching for a shortcut to open a program? Microsoft has lost it's way, simple as that.

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:32 am
by matthijs
If you're that serious about your system don't use microsoft. point.

you either run some linux distro if you want/need to customize things. or you buy a mac, press the on button and start working

Re: Who else considers XP an UPGRADE from Vista?

Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:07 am
by JAB Creations
matthijs wrote:If you're that serious about your system don't use microsoft. point.

you either run some linux distro if you want/need to customize things. or you buy a mac, press the on button and start working
Linux is even more count-intuitive then Vista and Windows 7. Try installing Opera without the console in Linux or that list of programs from the installer package thing. Linux is still an Os that really only appeals to those who don't mind spending time in a console instead of producing. OS X requires overpriced hardware and it's GUI isn't above criticisms such as the difficulty associated with dealing with multiple windows per program. Also you can't do things like CTRL+Home, or CTRL+SHIFT+HOME...a lot of very useful ways of quickly and thus powerfully selecting text which is important when editing code. Also you can't disable the page file in *nix systems or if you can it's hidden. Don't get me started on Swiss cheese hard drive partitions! :evil:

Linux is a web server OS. How many FTP programs can you install from that preselected list but you can't install Opera without having to go in to a console?

OS X remains a graphics OS and graphics isn't the heart of something, only the skin. You can still do graphics on Windows and even *nix.

...and I've seen some of the start menus on various distros of Linux and only Ubuntu executes it correctly.